More than three-and-a-half years after a US-led invasion deposed Saddam's totalitarian regime, the country remains in the grip of a vicious conflict that claims more than 100 Iraqi lives per day.

American soldiers are also still dying in near record numbers; the military confirmed the deaths of three more on Thursday, bringing December's toll to 99, and keeping it on course to be the bloodiest month for US troops this year.

Saddam's imminent demise - on December 26 a court ordered his execution within 30 days - has been welcomed by Washington, but US forces are nevertheless braced for a backlash from his remaining supporters.

Meanwhile, sectarian and insurgent violence continues to claim scores of lives every day and make a mockery of promises by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government to put in place a new Baghdad security plan.

Seven people were killed and 25 wounded when two booby traps exploded in a popular Baghdad market during the busy morning shopping rush, military officials and medics at the Al-Kindi hospital said Thursday.

The devices exploded in the Baab al-Sharki neighbourhood in the centre of the Iraqi capital, they said.

Another 10 people were killed and 35 wounded in east Baghdad near the Shaab stadium when a bomb exploded among a crowd queuing for heating fuel, according to a security official and medics at the Ibn-Nafis hospital.

South of the capital, three more civilians were killed in two bomb attacks, according to the defence ministry and the Yarmuk hospital.

Meanwhile, north of Baghdad, two Iraqi soldiers were killed when a booby trap exploded on the highway between the oil refinery depot of Baiji and Saddam's hometown Tikrit, said the local Iraqi-US coordination centre.

Another three soldiers were wounded in the explosion, which destroyed an Iraqi military vehicle, the source said.

In Diyala province north of the capital, a police captain and two civilian women were killed by unidentified gunmen in separate attacks, said Lieutenant Ali Khaled of the Baquba police.

The violence raged on as the Iraqi High Tribunal published a formal written judgement rejecting Saddam's appeal against his death sentence.

The official release of the judgement, signed by Judge Arif Abdulrazzak Shaheen of the Iraqi High Criminal Court in Baghdad, set in motion procedures which should lead to Saddam being executed within days or weeks.

"The court decided to endorse the condemnation and punishment of the condemned, Saddam Hussein, Barzan Ibrahim Hassan and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, by hanging, for committing a deliberate crime against humanity," it said.

The 17-page ruling was published on the website of the Iraqi High Tribunal, which on November 5 convicted Saddam, his half-brother and intelligence chief Hassan and former judge Bandar of ordering the deaths of 148 Shiite villagers.

Following the formal release of the judgement, the responsibility for organising the execution of the defendants passes to Iraq's government, court officials said. Iraq's cabinet was in session Thursday morning.

Later in the day, in the calmer surroundings of Bush's Texas ranch, the US president was to assemble his top aides to review his Iraq strategy and the role of America's 129,000 troops deployed in the country.

"That will be a meeting of all the members ... of the National Security Council," said Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman.

"This is a time for the president to be talking with his advisers about all the potential options, making sure that due consideration is given to the next steps, making sure that we're thinking through the new way forward in Iraq."

Bush is expected to deliver a speech announcing a new way forward in Iraq sometime early in the New Year.

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Bush's Support for Death Penalty Opens Rift With UK

By Anne Penketh

The Independent UK

Thursday 28 December 2006

The Bush administration welcomed the confirmation of the death penalty against Saddam Hussein, reopening the divide with the European Union and the United Nations, which are opposed to execution.

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said Saddam should not be hanged for crimes against humanity because his trial had been flawed and was marred by political interference by the Iraqi government.

A spokeswoman for Amnesty said: "We are against the death penalty as a matter of principle but particularly in this case because it comes after a flawed trial."

Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Programme at Human Rights Watch, said: "Imposing the death penalty, indefensible in any case, is especially wrong after such unfair proceedings. That a judicial decision was first announced by Iraq's National Security Adviser underlines the political interference that marred Saddam Hussein's trial."

Iraq's US-appointed interim government reinstated the death penalty in August 2004, causing friction with its coalition partner, Britain. The former top British representative in Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, said the UK would not participate in a tribunal or legal process that could lead to execution.

A Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday that while the execution of Saddam was "a matter for the Iraqis", Britain remained opposed to the death penalty, and had made representations to the government on that score.

The outgoing UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has expressed opposition to imposing the death penalty on Saddam on principle.

But the deputy White House press secretary, Scott Stanzel, struck a different note. "Today marks an important milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law," he told reporters aboard Air Force One. "Saddam Hussein has received due process and legal rights that he denied the Iraqi people for so long."